Editor X by Wix: Responding to Web Design and SEO Challenges

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Well-known and recognised website builder, Wix.com (NASDAQ: WIX) recently unveiled their new website solution, ‘Editor X,’ a website creation platform offering advanced design and layout capabilities specifically targeted to designers and web agencies.

In a move being welcomed by web designers, creatives and search engine optimisation (SEO) professionals the world over, Wix’s new solution looks set to revolutionise their existing platform and offering for their expanding market. With over 160 million existing customers, the only way seems to be up for this impressive company.

Wix’s wide, flexible new canvas allows the use of modern CSS technologies including Flexbox and Grid, all with precise drag and drop, so designers and web creators can control the exact position and styling of elements at every viewport. Although the concept of a drag and drop design process is certainly nothing new, how Wix have developed and continue to develop this new platform is.

Platforms including previous versions of Wix as well as the likes of Squarespace have offered simple and attractive-looking website designs in the past. But, as many who have spoken to TechRound over the years have testified, these old-school platforms have never quite ‘done all of the job required.’ This is where Editor X will come into its own and is set to really change things for the better.

TechRound discussed Editor X and the journey taken to design and implement this new solution with Matt Rosenberg, Director of Wix, to understand what it will mean for Wix and the world wide web as well as how it is moving Wix and its customers across 20 languages truly into the future.

What is Editor X All About?

The sophisticated design capabilities and approachable CSS technology of this new feature and solution are combined with Wix’s rich suite of business solutions, which allow businesses to plug their business in to their Wix-powered website. Also, additional coding capabilities are available if required, enabling the creation of powerful, complex websites at scale.

“We understand the evolving needs of designers and their clients, and we innovate to address their sophisticated demands and diverse requirements,” said Wix Co-founder and CEO Avishai Abrahami. “Wix has established itself as a leader in the DIY market, and at the same time we are enabling those who build websites for others. Editor X is the solution for these users with more complex design needs.”

No Longer ‘Just a Website Builder’

For many, Wix has over the years been seen as a way to build an attractive and functional website in a cost-effective and efficient manner. However, for many, including a large number of people who have spoken to TechRound, Wix has at times fallen short when it came to providing true business solutions. This is no longer the case though and Editor X is set to smash these now false perceptions of what is fast-becoming one of the most powerful and effective online business platforms and tools on the market.

Specific businesses have specific challenges and this has been front and centre in what Wix are seeking to achieve with their new Editor X. For example, a business selling a service or ‘client package’ will need a different offering to a traditional e-commerce business who may need to plug in multiple tools to their website. Wix now enables that and having been developed with business in mind, will help countless businesses across the 190 countries in which is active achieve this.

Editor X, according to Matt Rosenberg, will provide huge updates and upgrades to CSS (content styling sheet) capabilities for website builders and is set to become a fundamental tool for developers as well as creatives, enabling them the freedom to tweak, amend and edit the website’s code and functionalities as they need for their businesses.

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Editor X has hugely improved capabilities, designed with creatives and SEO in mind

Built for More than Just Creatives

A huge part of what Wix are looking to achieve with Editor X is to unleash the potential of creatives and developers. Although creatives have been able to achieve pretty much most of what they have always wanted with Wix-powered websites, as TechRound can testify, when it came to developers, things were limited. However, Editor X is set to unleash the potential of millions of developers across this new and exciting platform, and, unlike the likes of WordPress in many cases, users, designers and web builders will be anything but restricted in what they will be able to achieve.

Editor X is a new way of building a website and will comprise and contain everything you need to build a thriving and successful online business and website. By fulfilling everything you will ever need for business, few will see themselves leaving this new and powerful platform. You can even build a gaming website by using Wix. Find more information here about the best gaming web builders.

Taking Things Truly Global

Already available in 20 languages and across 190 countries, Wix are improving their global offering and availability further. For example, payment providers should you require them for your Wix-powered website are region specific, making things much safer, more efficient and easier to support customers with. As Matt puts it “…how people shop and pay in Japan will be very different to how people do so in the UK or elsewhere and our payment solutions reflect this.”

Editor X, Wix and SEO

A common problem experienced with previous versions of Wix has been that when it comes to SEO and search engine marketing, Wix websites just haven’t performed as well as you might like. However, Editor X is very very different. Developed directly with Google and with SEO firmly in mind, Editor X by Wix can be crawled [read and understood] better than ever before. A common issue with many website builders is that as plugins and additional elements are added, websites become ‘clunky’ and very cumbersome. In turn, they just don’t do as well online, with Google much preferring lean and clean websites, having been built in a clean and efficient manner.

Editor X is all of these things and more. Not only can Google truly and comprehensively understand, crawl and rank Editor X websites, but developers can get deep into the website and really fine tune things as they need and want; another huge positive when it comes to things like website speed and other SEO fundamentals.

Hosted on Wix’s global servers, something the company really focused on in 2019, there will be little worry about server downtime and website outages as is often the case with various other website builders and content management systems (CMS).

Furthermore, and perhaps one of the most exciting elements of Editor X is that although Wix will retain its extensive ‘warehouse’ of developers and templates, if, as Matt Rosenberg puts it “you really know what you’re doing, you can start blank…” in practice, this will give creatives, business owners and developers the freedom they have been craving and the freedom which Editor X and not many others out there will give them.